Hi dark horse
Ive just made the switch to SSD myself and it is very noticeable, I'm using 7 64bit with 2gb ram and although its nowhere near my desktop performance, it is plenty quick enough so you're not twiddling your thumbs waiting for it.
I noticed a big difference when I first doubled the ram, multitasking actually became useable and then since SSD load times are probably a quarter of what they were.
Can't comment on OS as so far I have only used 7 on the HDD and SSD I've had and I did play with Ubuntu aswell.
I'm sticking with 7 as I do actually find it very useable and my 1012 is more of an extension to the desktop.